


Throwing Spanners

by nork



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, he's just kinda sad and angry, mostly just me projecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:32:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7060492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nork/pseuds/nork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo is alone, working on the Argo. <br/>Little things always bothered him the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Throwing Spanners

He tugged the wrench.

Nope. Well and truly stuck.

Leo hadn’t been focusing, his mind in a completely different place. When he twisted the bolt a little too tight, it popped and the wrench somehow clung to it. Now it was embedded about four inches into the wooden hull of the Argo.

He just stared at it, for a few moments. Really, made his glare bore into the metal. He supressed all the flames tingling just beneath his skin; couldn’t risk burning the Argo over a fucking wrench.

Stepping forwards, he grabbed onto the wrench and pulled with all his might. Did the whole cliché clinging onto the wrench with feet against the wall. No luck.

Instead, he just collapsed. Laid on the floor on his back, like a puppet with its strings cut.

He was useless, he concluded. Couldn’t even perform a minor upgrade on the ship he built from scratch. All he needed to do was tighten a few bolts and the ship would be running perfect.

Course not. He just _had_ to lose concentration and then his utensils would go and dig themselves graves in the walls. Glancing around, there was one other instance of a spanner in the wall, only that one was more like seven inches in. He could summon new ones from his belt, but he didn’t.

 _So useless, the voice echoed in his head_. Gaia had always been the big bad voice in the back of his mind, and today was no exception. _Fail your friends, fail your ship, fail your family_. She laughed at him, malicious and cold and sharp.

It cut into him like a knife. Normally he’d be able to crack a joke to himself- he knew it sounded stupid, but he was his own best audience- but he just didn’t have the strength. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to be numb.

Most of all, though, he wanted Gaia’s voice to get the fuck out of his head. Not much chance of that, though.

Rosa’s voice began to echo Gaia’s. _Devil spawn_. The worst insult, really. Hit a little too close for home to be comfortable.

He fidgeted a little. They could’ve chosen anyone from his cabin for this stupid quest. Probably be able to maintain the ship better, and been a better friend.

Sometimes, he’d let himself entertain the thought that if they’d thrown a rock in the middle of a crowd, they’d likely hit one person who could be a better mechanic, more reliable, and not a wildcard that accidentally caused a war. A better friend, a better person. Not the pile of worthless junk that Leo was.

He stood up, about to leave the room. Around halfway through going to do this, he stopped.

He pulled a small spanner from his belt, its silvery surface reflecting the dim light. His fist tightened around the tool, and he glared down at it. Almost as if it was the one who’d caused his problems in the first place; he knew it was just a spanner, but spanners were better to take anger out on than people.

His eyes glinted brighter than anything in the room, and his eyes flicked up to the wall. Leo hurled the spanner at the wall, and it flew like a dart.

It whistled through the air and buried itself in the wood with a satisfying snap. Now that he’d started, he began to pull any kind of tools from his belt.

Spanners, wrenches, screwdrivers, even a pair of scissors flew from his hands and stuck fast into the walls. He lifted the final spanner, a small bronze coloured one.

His arms were weak from the explosive anger. He just felt empty. The tool belt needed a few minutes to regenerate, and this was the most it could summon. A tiny spanner.

Flames began to crackle along his fingers, touching the spanner. It grew hot, but not unbearably so. It was hard for things to get too hot for him nowadays. Being able to wield fire had its perks, few and far between that they were.

He extinguished the flame, and the room fell into a deep, enveloping darkness. Leo allowed the spanner to fall from his fingers. It clattered on the floor.

He made the final decision to just leave the room. And so he did, shutting the door quietly behind him. No point waking and worrying the others. They’d just make it worse.

Worse was one thing he could not handle.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Leo was always someone I could relate to a lot in HoO. Mostly because of his loneliness and the belief he wouldn't fit in? I dunno. I wasn't having a good time when I wrote this, and I didn't post it because it was just a vent thing. I reread it and it seemed okay- I'm experimenting with writing styles, and I do quite like the short paragraph things in this one. Tell me what you think!!


End file.
